My Father Across The Ocean
by The Winged Lioness
Summary: Set during the Androids/Cell Saga. A year within one day. The Prince of Saiyans and his stranger son from the future. What really happened behind the doors of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber?
1. Pride Rock

**Disclaimer:**** Akira Toriyama, I cannot thank you enough for this anime and its wonderful characters, especially Vegeta, Bulma, Raditz, Trunks and Piccolo, that are my favorites. I know you wouldn't mind me borrowing them to pay a tribute by writing this story.**

**o - o - o**

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

**This is my second story featuring Vegeta as a main character. He is simply a godly, inexhaustible source for a fan fiction writer. With his multi-sided, quirky, even Byronic personality is an inspiration on its own. He is definitely going to star in my stories for a long time, until I feel that I've explored and exhausted everything he has to offer as a character.**

**However, I decided to write from Trunks's perspective. I believe he was the one who had grown more during their time in the Chamber, both as a warrior and as a person.**

**There is another reason, though. I remembered that he was the one to do the telling in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber episode on the series. I re-watched a few scenes on YouTube to take in all the details. A few commenters noted how good a story teller Trunks was, I too noticed that his speech could rival some of Vegeta's famous ones. I tried to copy his monologue style from the DBZ scene where he tells about his and Vegeta's training time in the Chamber. I hope I didn't go over the board and dive into purple-prose waters.**

**I tried to approach their relationship in a realistic way, based on what we've seen on the series. Post-Chamber episodes revealed that the year did not make Vegeta mellow towards his son, but let's just assume that whatever happened in the Chamber, stayed in the Chamber. What is fanservice for if not to fulfill our wishes how it could have been, after all?**

**Please read and enjoy. Reviews are very welcome, especially concrit. Feel free to be as harsh and blunt as you want. Honest concrit is invaluable.**

**One warning. For the first couple of chapters, forget the Mirai Trunks you know from the Android/Cell Saga, the one mightier than his father, and remember him as he was in the beginning, a seventeen-years-old boy, the one who grew up in a shattered world. The android apocalypse has prepared him for the hardships of battle, but not life. There is a long journey from boy to man and Trunks is definitely going to make it, just not quite yet…**

o - o - o

**CHAPTER 1 - PRIDE ROCK**

The sun is the heart of everything. The heart that has been blazing for aeons and will be there when we are no longer. The heart of fire, father of life. It _is_ life.

I was born in a godless world with a great burden to shoulder. As I was looked upon to bring the new tomorrow, thus I too needed something to trust in, to help me carry on. It is the sun I chose to worship. When nighttime darkness settled above the ruins of my city, I would wait for the first strands of light to show up from beneath the horizon and sigh with relief, knowing that the day had once again won the battle. If sun has the power to arise and cleanse the suffocating darkness only to fall again when eve comes, then so can I. And so I will. I would tell this to myself as I dragged my beaten body into the aegis of the last lingering shadows, with a promise to get up again and fight.

This time feels different, though. Is it that I've been languishing in a half-lit world, squinting through smoke and ashes, so long that I can no longer recognize the true face of the sun? Too bright, too radiant, it's hovering above my insignificant form like a huge, all-seeing Eye of the world. I can feel my scalp burn under its judging eye.

My own eyes are bored into the back of my father's head.

I draw a deep breath. How is it possible that the wind is at its wildest, tugging sharply at my jacket sleeves, yet the air is so stagnant? It barely reaches my lungs. The intake feels too shallow and I know I'll need more of them, many more for what I was going to do.

For the last time I try, vainly, to lick the taste of dust off my lips.

"Father, please reconsider."

_One more draw. Another one. Yet another..._

"Is there anything to reconsider?"

I exhale with a sharp hiss, my chest deflating. Well, not exactly, since he had turned my plea down without a single thought. Waved it away with a smooth, backward motion of his hand the way one would refuse a butler, offering a cup of morning coffee.

My initial strategy of simply standing here and plucking thin strings of his nerve long enough to wear him down is proving useless, my resolve melting under that unsettling heat in his eyes. This is not the way a loving father would look down at his son (although in this case it is the other way around. Father wouldn't lift his head an inch - it is me who must bend his neck and force his chin down. Such a false anatomy… By all means, it should have been him looking down on me. If only there was an inch for every ounce of smugness he had, he would be a towering mountain over me). Not even the way the proudest of Saiyans would look at his heir, so eager to learn. Moreover, it is the proud Saiyan's duty to educate his heir on these martial matters. And finally, the heir has a right to demand it.

"I was asking…"

"You were not asking. You were _begging_. That's not a way with me, boy. Would you care to know how often I hear it from every dying dog I've killed? It sickens me." he turns his chin to the side slightly, muscles rippling down the curve of his neck in this particular combination of grace and lethality.

"I am not an enemy - I am your son!" fury thickens my voice. It is begging no longer.

"Learn to be a Saiyan first and behave as one, before styling yourself a son of Saya-jin no Ouji. Were we still living on our home planet, your own personal bodyguard would cram raw sulphur down your throat for such an insult. A Saiyan does not beg and certainly does not whine his way into a favour-"

"It's not a favour. I have a right to it!"

He takes a step back, not out of unease, I see, but pure disgust.

"What on seven hells made you think you had any right to me? You, a half-breed, unfledged brat." he spits over the shoulder. "Have you only been unweaned so recently that your head is still soft and porous from breast milk?" his lips pucker. "If that is the case, brat, get out of my sight as soon as your _ki_ carries you. I have no fondness for children. Your mother probably didn't think to warn you, though, _did she_?"

This is outrageous, too mortifying even by his standards. I feel anger rising, welling into a shock, wrenching my insides, into concrete, clenching my teeth together. This is a helpless kind of anger. All I can do is withstand this force, the impact of his loathing words. And here I thought I was rational enough not to let false mockery get to me.

There has only been one time I let it happen. Yet not even the androids had such spite in them; my father's mouth is fouler than those of the most wicked enemies my world had been condemned with. Realizing this, my fury turns into a wound of the betrayed.

I draw my sword, deliberately, letting fine steel grind against the edge of its sheath, skillfully catching the right angle to have a a sunray run down the ridge. He gives me a flat look as if I'm wielding a needle.

The words that should not be spoken find their way from under my tongue before I can stop them. Yet somehow on their course out they lose all the hardness and fire I could muster.

Watching him bellow with laughter, I wonder why it is so impossible to stand one's ground before the prince of Saiyans.

_You don't even know me… How can you resent me so much?_

His back is already at me, yet I hear him grumble. "To think that I have stooped so low… siring mongrels… Father would be turning in his grave now, if he had one."

For all he knew, I was already gone. The moment he averted his eyes, I became nothing more than a wind-breath behind his shoulders, a fleck on his boot.

For a brief moment I decide, childishly, that I took much too little of his time to be done with. I am a Saiyan and his own blood, and even if that doesn't make me worth another word, I'm not a dog to be chased away with a flick of a hand. I lift my chin.

His back is still at me, stiff as a rock. Like a flat back of a cobra, frozen in spot. If you so much as fidget, I've read, the reptile strikes. Her sting is fatal. If one encounters a cobra in the desert, it is best not to make a slightest noise and retreat slowly… _slowly..._

My father is like a reptile, I ponder. Cold and unfathomable, and ready to strike at whatever triggers his peace of mind. Which is brittler than a film of ice, covering ponds in the spring.

I haven't come here to brawl, damn it. I'll have need of my strength and bloodlust soon enough. To waste it on a fruitless territorial fight is to stoop to his level. This is not how I was raised. This I keep on telling myself as I draw away from him in backward steps, retreat as the said desert traveller not to invoke a cobra's wrath.

"Coward!" he could have yelled after me. Except that he did not care enough even for a sneer. It didn't take me long to realize that, with enough venom under his tongue to last him a lifetime, it is not mockery I should fear from my father, but silence.

o - o - o

A coward I might be, but not amenable. Three times I have asked. The first time I was so nervous that I had to stifle my _ki_ not to let father know. Yet he did.

"_Look at you - flustered, tongue-tied with your tail between your legs. If you had one, that is." _

My face burst into flames. I glowered at him - he lost his own tail years ago!

I seemed to have failed what little of his acknowledgment I had had. My next attempt was met with silence, such kind of silence that comes crushing down on you like a fat ocean tide, as absolute as a mother's last _No_. There were, though, words in his silence he did not bother to speak.

I wanted these words, I needed them. Hence I came at him again, charged like a soldier to the battle, armed with my rights. Father was armed with arrogance.

Little did it matter. In the end it was my clumsy tongue against his _hmph_s, _pff_s and words in between them, words as sharp as knives. One by one they struck me acutely in sensitive spots I'd never even known I had, and then I was done for.

A sigh heaves my chest as I concede and walk away. The descent feels steeper than the way up had been. Tiny rolling stones get in the way of my feet, threatening to take away my balance and the last shreds of dignity. Vain threat, but the sound of grinding rock is annoying. I spring up and complete the second half of descent airborne. As I land softly on the balls of my feet, I look around for a small, rain-scoured hollow at the base of the rock which has served me for a seat for past three days. Rain water has eaten its way through the body of the rock and gathered down as a little pool right beneath my bottom, but I pay no mind.

I myself don't know what keeps me here anymore. If I had any sense, I would have gone off to train vigorously after the first rejection. We only have so much time.

Childish stubbornness, I suppose. That and a strange feeling that something might happen soon. Not an epiphany, not quite an intuition. Just a flicker at heart. Yet life had taught me not to be oblivious to these kind of warnings.

Brute winds had cleansed the sky to its purest form, not a single fleck of cloud to hinder the blue. It is the prime-time of day; the sun a crowned queen in the sky, everything around me basking in its glory. All but the hollow where I sit, dwarfed by the higher rock.

While I relish in the shadow, nothing else is hidden. My eyes climb the body of the thorn to the very peak which the Saiyan prince has claimed. His form is devoured by white light, the outlines shimmering. When my eyes can bear it no longer, I turn away, yet the light had seeped under my eyelids. The image glows beneath my closed eyes, red-on-black.

A torrent of memories washes over me, called forth by this image, some of them too old to have endured.

o - o - o

I remember when my mother forced me to watch a silly animated movie. I was unwilling; even in the early years of childhood, toys and entertainment held little interest for me. I spent my days by Gohan's side. Together we combed forests and mountains, hunted carnivores that would take eight grown men to handle, found the wildest rivers to bathe in and leap off the waterfalls.

He was a friend to me, a confidant, something between brother and father, and later he became my teacher. Idleness and insouciance was something people of our time did not have the luxury of, not even the children. I was never lightsome to begin with, anyway. As soon as my Saiyan nature took hold of me, I declared, with all the solemnity of a four-years-old, that it was time to begin my training. Gohan agreed wholeheartedly, gave me a punch of approval on the shoulder and vowed to make a fighter out of me, the hope of the future. Since that day all else ceased to matter. There were days when I would come back for dinner so battered that I collapsed at the table with my head in the soup bowl. There were days when I was not seen home at all.

Thankfully, mother understood. She feared for me, but did not once tried to restrain my zeal. Of course, she thought me capable enough to defend myself and trusted Gohan to keep me out of trouble's way; she knew well that no natural beings of Earth could pose a threat to us, but I think she would have gone out into the wild too, if she only could. Despite her fragile appearance, my mother had a fighter's spirit in her, fierce and tenacious. I believe that was what had once caught the prince's eye.

However, even she insisted that every man must be a child first. She bought a collection of animated children movies, golden classics, as she called them, and made me watch them all one by one.

"The last one and the best of them all. "_Lion King_". Come on, dear, you'll never know what it means to be a little prince until you've seen this one."

I struggled like a spoiled little brat. My caprice would be incomprehensible ro any other ten-years-old, I now realize, but I really couldn't care less. Golden classics or not, they were all boring and nonsense to me.

Until mother said those magical words.

"Even your father might have approved of this one."

I chewed on my lip thoughtfully. I'd never met my father, yet through her words I felt almost as if I knew him myself. I was terribly wrong, as it turned out, but all children need heroes to look up to, don't they? Even though it pained her, even I could tell, mother always spoke lovingly of him. A warrior through and through, she said, a hero. He who loved us most. Now I know that humouring me with this much glorified and loose epitaph was as much a part of the hurt as the loss itself, but back then a mere mentioning of father made me feel like something more than I was, something special, as much as I resent to put it this way. I felt that I should behave as befitting the son of such a respectful figure.

With no more ado I grudgingly let her pick me up and place me on the couch like a sturdy doll. Then she settled beside me and grabbed a remote control.

The story didn't stay long in my otherwise-occupied head, but a few scenes did touch me. There is one I still remember distinctly, even after all these years.

A lone, tall rock in the centre of a scorched savannah plain. The Pride Rock was its name. It was home for a lion pride and its peak - a throne for their royals: King Father, Queen Mother and their son the Prince, a little cub who was born to rule these dry lands, his reach as vast as the sun goes, all the way till the shadowrealm.

I can see it now: the King Lion welcoming the dawn on his high seat. The wind of the morning wrestling with his mane as the King looks down at the plains, and he sees it all - tall, golden grass, acacia trees with crooked stems, one might confuse them to broccolis from this high, and-

_Woosh!_

One moment we were all alone among the rocks, the other there's another presence, warm and familiar. Blinking away the remains of my daydreams, I turn my head to see a tall Saiyan, clad fully in his red fighting _gi_, holding his son by the hand and looking as sound as a roach. The air of jolliness, always about him, makes me forget my brooding for a while.

"Goku…"

He greets me with a smile.

"Hey! How's the training going, Trunks?"

"Not well. I guess my father really doesn't want me to train with him. He thinks I'll slow him down and every time I get close, he tells me to get lost. Look at him - he's not doing anything. He's been standing in the same spot, staring into space for the last three days. He hasn't moved."

Despair and exasperation in my voice sobers him down. Goku lifts his eyes up to find the said Saiyan, wallowing both in the light of the sun and the darkness of his mind. The whole world of its own I know nothing about and have no right to evade. A smallest sign of threat and the defenses grow higher, tighter, rise up like battlements.

I glance at Goku and for a moment I believe we're thinking exactly the same. He stares at father up there as if knowing precisely how to storm these battlements or, to put it more earthly - to mash some sense into his damnably thick head. Suddenly I notice that their eyes look very much alike when the prince is not caught in his infamous temper fit and the jolly Saiyan - a bit more austere.

"Yeah, that _is_ strange. Maybe he's just waiting for a sign or something to show him the way, right?"

That's exactly what I was waiting for, too. It occurs to me, suddenly, that Goku has come here for a reason. He's not the type to stick around and watch while there is work at hand. He must have a game plan. It seems that those three days, wasted in dormancy, won't go to naught. Well worth the wait, then.

"I'll go have a word with him."

I nod gratefully. Goku is about the only person father would reckon with. I've heard him cuss at the younger Saiyan with promises to crush his every bone to powder and other sorts of mad threats, yet I knew enough to know that he idolized the kind-hearted Saiyan, at least looked up to him as his personal standard mark. He will listen.

I am all ears too. If Goku intended to make this conversation private, he'd have asked to carry it elsewhere. Besides, I am curious to hear whatever solution he has to offer.

The answer shocks me with a jolt of joyous surprise. _Another dimension that exists within this one? A year of training in one day?_ This is ingenious! The straw to hold on to when we're drowning. Now that I see it, our only enemy is time itself. The Hyperbolic Time Chamber would turn this enemy into our ally.

More questions are bugging me. Why is it that no one knew of this in my time, and how did Goku come by this knowledge? Had he known it all along? I glance at Gohan, but he looks just as clueless as I. He greets my arched eyebrow with a shrug and turns his head away, listening intently. So am I.

"_Sure, but here's the problem. Only two people can go in the room at once. I'm going in with Gohan, so you'll have to go in with Trunks."_

My insides wrench into a tight knot and I bow my head, lips twisting into a bitter grin. A whole year, locked in a room with a person who wishes nothing more than to have me out out of sight. A year?

I sigh and shake my head ruefully. _Damn you, Goku… Kind-hearted and pure to the core as you are, you probably can't understand what you are putting us through._

If father doesn't like something (someone), he does not tolerate it for a second. Locking up the two of us in that chamber would be like hanging two opposite-poled magnets on a thread under a closed dome. There will be a storm, surely, and there's no saying that the Chamber will still be standing afterwards. No question if _I_ will still be standing. He is my father, but I can predict him no more than I can predict the ways of thunder. What if he gets annoyed… too much?

Father shares my common sense, too.

"_That's better not be another one of your tricks!"_

"_Hey, would I lie to you? We're all in this together now, remember? This is on the level, I promise!"_

"_All right, I'll go! As long as I get to go first."_

I could be mad that they sorted this out without my say, but I'm not that childish. I would enter this room with the Lord of Hell himself to get more time on my hands. Just a handful of sand from the hourglass. A handful that might save us all.

"_Sure! You know, this is a great way for father and son to get to know each other."_

_Wish carefully, for it may come true._ It was my lifelong wish to get to know my father, this mysterious figure of the past, the one I wanted to be when I grow up. Now, to be honest, I'm not sure if I still want to. Yet I know that I won't be able to stay behind and pretend that he doesn't exist, even though that's probably what he will do. I _will_ ask questions, whether he chooses to answer or not, and I will try to pry into his head to see what kind of a man he really is. Our recent fight and his rejection didn't arouse opposing hatred in me. It aroused interest instead.

With one single remark he ignited a challenge I could never refuse. _"Become a Saiyan first."_. An open invitation to try and prove myself to him. This single sentence made my chest swell with wild resolution and fire of youth… and with hope. Father is going to test me somehow, which means that he is not entirely indifferent.

I will even attempt to make him change his ways. One year is a long time, right? Enough to bring forth the better of him. Isn't it?

I see a a vision, a glowing illustration like one of these pictures in my pre-school books. _A happy family of three, healthy and whole. Both mother and father standing at the sides of their son. The boy looks at one, then turns his head to look at another, and he finds nothing but love and care in their smiling faces. Both smiling._

Perhaps I still am a child after all. Some part of me doesn't hold a katana in his hand. The hands of that little inner me do not have the strength of a Saiyan. The reach out for bigger ones to hold them tightly.

Goku leaps down. Shortly after, keeping his distance, follows Vegeta. It seems we're going to take off right away. Father clutches Goku's wrist and Goku takes his son's hand. They exchange smiles, one - encouraging, the other - trusting, and then Goku turns at me, reaching out a hand in my direction with a share of grin for me, too. I just realize that I cannot remember anymore what it feels like to hold another's hand. Can't remember what it felt like to hold my mother's hand...

Before they get impatient, I curse myself for these weepy ramblings and join them. Just before we disappear into a vortex of space and time, I glance up at the great sphere in the sky. It has not moved at all, it seems, still claiming the zenith. I try to draw some reassurance from its radiance.

And then were were gone.


	2. The Face Of Fire

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**

**So, the second chapter is finally there. I really should move fan fiction writing higher up my list of priorities, even if I have lots and lots of them… I've been a slow as Sid the sloth, I know. No, what am I rambling about, Sid could beat me anytime in his Fire King mode, on the way to the sacred volcano with his legs tied up.**

**Anyway, straight to the point. I deeply apologize for my constant writing faults. I named them 4Ps:**

**1. Purple prose**

**2. Pathos (Trunks the Drama Queen. Well, at least they didn't have Facebook back then, eh?)**

**3. Prolonging (going heavy on musings)**

**4. Pytos (oops, I mean - typos. It should be generally clean, but I can't guarantee anything)**

**And one more. Grammar. I know it was horrible at times. This is where I draw my "Not A Native English Speaker" card. Right, that's my Patronus. You Grammentors can't touch me now.**

**If you happen to be tired and/or impatient today and just want an easy, flawless, fast-paced read, better skip this one (but don't you dare not come back later!)**

**The action continues from where it was left. Our two Saiyans finally enter the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. Vegeta is mentally dancing CanCan at the joy of having one full year of undisturbed bone-breaking training.**

**Well, not quite undisturbed. In the meanwhile, Trunks is finally learning to stand his ground against the cocky prince. Whether he's succeeding or failing, that's up to you to decide. Like I said in the previous chapter, that sort of thing doesn't happen overnight.**

**Enjoy!**

o - o - o

**CHAPTER 2 - THE FACE OF FIRE**

I remain true to my resolve and do what I came here to do - train, train, train. Time melts away without me noticing as I lose myself in this infinite ocean of white, bringing forth every ounce of _ki_ my body can gather, hitting repeatedly the line of my limit, trying to push through.

It feels like trying to freeze a lightning bolt in my palm, to force a river upstream. There is nothing to hold on to. When I had first ascended to Super Saiyan, it was unconscious. It was like a pillar of energy shot through my body, igniting every single cell on its way with power. I had thought I new my limits until the androids came and started shredding my world away, piece by piece. Man by man. Friend by friend. The moment I saw Gohan's broken body on the ground, my limits shredded away too. I had thought I knew power, until I felt my very core explode with it, my _ki_ transforming into an aura of gold, unable to contain itself in the frame of mortal body.

I do not have now what I had then, this wrenching grief and rage. But I do have willpower. I cling to it like a poor man to his last penny and try. When the amount of _ki _I emit exceeds the limit my body can withstand and I collapse, every hair on my head aglow with painful static, I grit my teeth and get up again.

And yet I'd be lying if I said that training sessions was the worst thing to bear. It is not the hours spent in training, but the ones at rest that make me wish I was anyplace but here.

Before the first few days in the Chamber, I could never have thought that something as trivial as dining could be so awkward.

Our living quarters are stocked with food in such amounts that even two full-grown Saiyans can be satiated. Thankfully, all of it is pre-made, ready to eat after a couple of minutes in the microwave. This saves both of us the trouble of having to cook it, which I'm hardly competent to do. Neither is my father, I suppose.

We never really agreed on the time. Father had already made it clear that my company repulsed him as equally as any of his forced allies. I am sure that he'd rather eat alone, but it turned out that our biological clocks were quite matched. We both take only one big (enormous) meal during the day, and at least one day out of three I find myself sitting across the senior Saiyan.

It is usually the only time of day I can observe him from this close, and yet my eyes are glued to the plate. I can hear him chewing violently, eager to continue the workout as if this necessary nutrition was nothing but a hindrance to him. I've never seen such single-minded determination.

This Chamber isolates us from the outside world completely. If I had entered it alone, I'd have gone mad within a few days from the lack of sensations. Now that my father is here too, his restlessness seems to charge the air with tension like the coming of a storm. This tension interferes with my appetite, and I have to force every bite down my throat.

It goes without saying that any attempts of starting a conversation were in vain. Only in the first two days I tried to create civil, if not friendly, interaction, but only provoked one of his infamous temper fits. All I received was a stinging shower of insults. More than the names he called me I was angered by cold indifference with which he hurtled them at me. I felt bitter envy for Goku at that moment, the special place he had earned in my father's life. I knew that he was constantly in the prince's thoughts. All his actions, all thoughts were directed towards his rival. Compared to this, I was but a minor character in his life, hardly worth his notice.

This tension between us might be single-sided. Honestly, I have no idea what are my father's feelings towards me. Disdain and indifference, for sure, but this is his neutral reaction to everyone save for Goku. He might be annoyed with me, regret ever bringing me to this world or think nothing of me at all, but I doubt that he hates me. He seems far more comfortable with loathing than any other emotion, or at least very used to it. If he were to harbour a sort of despite against me, I think I'd know.

This is what I tell to myself every time he struts past me, his shoulder almost bumping into mine, his eyes locked firmly forwards as if I'm not here. No morning or night greetings are exchanged. Sometimes I wonder if I haven't already forgotten how to talk, how to form coherent words and sentences on my lips as well as inside my head. The words I so desperately need to say come out hidden in a vocal torrent as I howl, letting the power of Super Saiyan course through my veins. The ground quakes beneath my feet, the blaze about my body is almost thick enough to be taken for liquid gold, pulsing evenly, and all this power I command feels godly, but he is too far to see it, training on his own somewhere far across the white ocean.

"_I wouldn't expect too much out of your father."_ my mother had said. Had I only heeded her words back then, I wouldn't have to live with these thoughts now.

But how is it possible not to expect anything at all?

o - o - o

I had referred to myself and father as two opposing magnets that should never come near to each other. Kami forbid, I won't strive to see the outcome anytime soon, not until I will have achieved the ascend, at least, but I do feel calmer knowing that the storm can easily be avoided. There is very little chance for us to cross paths with this great white void in between us. With this in mind, I've grown fonder of it as days and nights pass.

Sometimes, though, I wish it would shrink just enough to reveal father somewhere there, training as if he didn't have all those days ahead of him. As if it was his last noon to live.

On the very first day in the Chamber he made a very unambiguous request to be given peace and solitude. That he did, and at first I was all too glad to honour it. My petty wounds were still fresh, my feathers ruffled, and I would start seething at the very thought of him. I'm sure the feeling was mutual.

A few days later, however, hollow pride gave way to sense. This was no time for family quarrels. I'd been hoping to learn from him, hadn't I? With his years of firsthand battle experience, father would make a superb role model (aside from his attitude, of course). He may not let me train with him, but if I could at least watch him train... That would be something, at least.

It was easier said than done, though. The man was just too good at staying away. Must be all these years of solitary life he had chosen. Nevertheless, I will not be giving up. I may not be his equal in cunning, but perseverance is something we both share.

A day came, when my efforts finally paid off.

It had started off as just a regular morning, much like dozens of other mornings I'd had since I came here. I had long since stopped keeping a precise track of days. With a single-minded routine and barely anything to interfere with it, the time here often seemed as infinite as the white space, stretching out in all four corners. I had to put my trust into the two emerald hourglasses and keep myself from taking a peek to often. I was afraid I might develop a nervous compulsion.

According to my recently re-adapted sense of timing, we were nearing the end of the first month in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, and I still remember this particular morning like no other.

I wake up later than usual, numb and disoriented. The moment I open my eyes, I wince at hellish throbbing in my arms and hips. It takes me a few blinks to recall last night.

I moan through my teeth. What in seven hells had gotten into me that still kept me outside training when the gravity increased (there were no means of measure, but my body could tell) over five hundred times that of Earth's? I felt about as lithe and lightweight as a whale, washed out on the shore, yet I didn't stop. I kept punching at thickened air and _ki_ blasts into until my body could take no longer. I collapsed, face-down, waiting for the gravity to subside. When it finally did, my whole frame felt jelly-like. The last thing I remember was dragging myself towards the bed on my hands and knees.

I still curse myself for doing exactly what I frown upon my father doing as I take a solitary breakfast on a pile of toasts. Father has probably gotten up hours before, I muse. If he had gone to sleep at all, that is…

As soon as I'm done, I head straight for my favourite spot in the white vacuum, ignoring my sores.

That might not be the best way to put it, though. After all, the Chamber is infinite. There are no markings of length nor width, nothing whatsoever to keep track of distance. Popo had warned us. _"Be careful not to go venture too far in, lest you lose you way. If this happens, you are are good as doomed."_

I took his words into my head and never went far enough to lose sight of the two emerald hourglasses. Soon enough I discovered a way to determine my location by the angle in which I see them. I most often choose to train having just the golden top of the left hourglass in my field of vision. Hence a "spot".

Father was heedless, though. I almost shudder to think how deep in he goes every time and never tried to convert my fear into numbers. It was enough to know that I could neither see nor hear him when I was out in the open as well.

As much as he wanted to go unnoticed, the prince was unable to completely suppress his _ki_. Twice, while training, I could feel his spiritual energy coming. Mere shadow of his true power, it would strike me like a gust of Pacific wind, all but cutting the ground under my feet. I could only imagine what was happening somewhere on the other side of this white ocean. It was then that I became obsessed with the thought of seeing him in action.

Somehow, my favoured "spot" just doesn't seem that appealing today. My pace wavers. And then stops altogether.

I let out an exasperated sight. What the hell am I doing, just standing there in the midst of space? I'm hardly any closer to ascension than four weeks ago, and already slacking off like this... _What kind of a Saiyan am I?_

And then it strikes me that, in all this time, I have never yet taken a day off.

To hell with this. I can damn well see that, at the moment, I just don't have it in me to put my body through another maddening fruitless session of fighting gravity, ice and fire and myself. Why bother with work if I can't give myself fully to it…

_Why bother, indeed… That's something he would do…_

Slowly, I turn around.

And then I sense it.

A gust of foreign _ki _catches me off guard. Powered static collides with the field of my own aura and then disappears swiftly, like all those times before. A trail still lingers in the air, with a faint taste of burning leaves. It won't be long until it is gone too.

I make up my mind.

o - o - o

I can hear him before I lay my eyes on him. It is a thunderstorm I hear, and if I didn't know better, I could easily be fooled into thinking it was Kami himself, painting the whiteness with skybolts. Except that a god might look a tad more collected.

And, in all four corners of the Universe, no god could ever be more distant.

I duck my head once in a while to let a strayed _ki_ ball fly above my head. Otherwise, not a hair on my head is in danger. The prince keeps his energy field firmly in control, undetectable from the outside. It is only in the most intense moments that it leaks through.

One of such moments makes me want to go down and crawl away like a bug from his madness. Father's body now hardly resembles anything human. Exerted power is monstrous even by our standards. Bulging veins twine about his limbs like lianas, muscles underneath them scarce to the point of bursting.

We may be equals in strength. Sometimes, just sometimes I have a feeling that I exceed him. Now I realize that this will never be the case. Even fifty years from now own, when I will have reached the ripest age (assuming that we both survive for this long), I will still be his inferior. I can see that clearly now, and the worst thing is, in that I cannot help myself. I am a warrior, a powerful one too, yet there is one thing I completely lack. The pose.

I have yet to see him fight, to truly fight, against an opponent worthy of him. Father would never look twice at a lesser one, on that I would bet my head. He would squash one like a bug and it couldn't be called a fight at all. What he enjoys most is a superior enemy. Better still - his equal.

Whatever monster blocked his way, it doesn't matter. The kind of warrior I imagine him to be, father would taunt him with his throat choked tight and his life at stake, a candle to blow off. He would mock them into defeat. When a bastard ten times his strength crawled out , father would but give him that look of something less than contempt, make a rich-worded threat and jump into the fight head-first, without a single doubt of his victory. I've heard he has had his losses. Enough of them to break a lesser man. Even defeated, he would go down with grace, I imagine. The kind of grace that belongs only to kings in the battlefield.

_Majestic_. That's the word, I muse. A word that puts a millennial drift between us, for this is something I could never be.

Finally the prince pauses for long enough to notice me down there. His form, hovering in the air, frozen in one of the higher _Kata_ stances, is glorious. When I come back to my era, I will remember him such.

"What are you staring at, boy? I didn't let you come with me in here just to get a break. Go do something useful."

His voice has the weight of authority. I'd hear it every single time he opened his mouth in front of me, and I sometimes wonder where it comes from. The prince had wasted away his childhood and youth in Frieza's ship, suffering his tyranny. That much my mother had told me, at least. And yet here he stands, finally sparing me a longer look and bossing his stranger Super Saiyan son around as though he has always been on top of the world. I snort.

I didn't see it coming until a steel-hard fist grabs my hair, and suddenly his face is inches away from me. A voice in the back of my head tells me that very, very few people had been in such a close proximity with my father and escaped with their lives.

His eyes are painful to look at.

"You will not mock me." he hisses through his teeth. Rage deepens the lines on his face, and for the first time the difference between our ages glows apparent.

"I-I'm sorry." I stammer. So much for my undying efforts to win his favour. It seems like I just killed all chances.

I half-expect him to call me into a fight. To try to beat me like a puppy. I'm not even sure which one of us is stronger, but at least there is no question of who would give himself fully to the fight.

The prince makes no move, though. A tip of his eyebrow goes up.

"So what are you going to do now?"

I stare at him, shocked. Is he giving me a choice?

_A trial_. He wants to see what kind of stuff I am made of - my mother's sense or his spirit.

"I wasn't mocking you." I mumble. "I was just…" and this is where the track of my thought breaks. How would I explain this without revealing that he is constantly in my thoughts these days? All the assumptions, unconfirmed guesses, broken threads of facts I have gathered together during these four weeks. He mustn't know…

"Out with it, boy." The sound of his fingers tapping against his crossed arms is too loud.

After two more seconds of reasoning, I choose a coward's way out.

"I'd better take your advice and go train, father. See you in the dinner time… or not." He usually skips his evening meal every second or third day to get some extra minutes of training. Pushing himself to an early grave- I mean, nervous breakdown. I'll just have to make sure I am nowhere around when he snaps.

I brush my rapidly growing hair from my eyes, turn on my heel and head opposite direction from my contentious father. Every step is hesitant, waiting for a barked command to stop, which would mean that he cares.

A wave of disgust floods my chest.

_Look at yourself, groveling before his feet like a drooling puppy._ He had every right to scorn me.

Two more steps. Silence.

Five more seconds. My shoulders are tense. One part of me is waiting for a lunge at my back, yelling at me to keep my guard on. _Trust no one._

The other part is arguing with all the fervor of the young boy in me. _Your father would never strike you from behind. Such tricks are beneath him. His pride is clad in honour, not arrogance, as everyone tends to think_. I myself no longer know the difference.

Hope and curiosity are nibbling at me. I can't feel this strange tingling on the back of my neck, which you get when you are being watched. His eyes must have a hellish sting to them, burn right through my skin like acid. Why can't I feel them?

I blame my armour for that. My father's trademark Saiyan suit which, even after a whole month, doesn't seem to cling to me the way it should. Too heavy, the upper part of armour locks my chest in like the cage ribs, making me struggle for breath during some most intense training moments.

He probably likes that, I muse quietly; when in the utmost heat of a battle his body is crossed with his enemy's, mere inches apart, the monster cannot feel his raging heartbeat. Even if he could, though, how could he tell if it is from fear or fever?

I had brought my old clothes in, even though my mother insisted that they were too fragile for this kind of training. As always, she was right - the blue Capsule Corps jacket was in shreds at the end of the second training session, leaving me no choice but to adopt the classic Saiyan attire.

When I first came out dressed in a navy-blue suit and white-yellow chest plate with golden shoulder strips, father observed me with queer amusement. I thought I saw a smug smile on his lips, but when I looked again, his face looked no different than usual.

I remember asking him how he could stand being in this suit. He shot me an askance glance.

"_It is a fine suit for a warrior. Get used to it."_

Blue fabric is covering every inch of my body, save for the lower part of my throat. Someone else, a certain someone, might feel very safe inside it, but I feel strangled. My skin cannot breathe, and sweat stays hidden like poison in the liver, itching and burning. This is how my father felt for years, isn't it?

"What's the matter? Have you rooted in the floor like a carrot?"

I flinch and spin around.

The landscape has changed. Hardly a few minutes ago desert sand was beneath our feet. Now I find myself surrounded by Alpine vista. The air is blissfully fresh. I can taste ice-dust in every taken breath, soothing my scorched throat. A range of snow-capped mountains reaches into horizon for as far as I can see.

At the top of one of those my father's standing, straight and firm like an obelisk. Golden strips of his armour shimmer in the sun. For once he is looking directly at me.

"If working your arse off till the brink of collapsing without so much as a full night's sleep is your way of training, it doesn't mean that I have to follow it."

He didn't move. There is something different in his posture now, I notice. That air of hostility about him is gone. I can only guess that fatigue has taken its toll on him already.

I fly closer. Landing behind his back, I cannot help feeling an unsettling sensation of _deja-vu_. A thirty-and-so days ago, there was a rock too, my father atop as a lone king. And me, trying so desperately to make myself worth a notice.

A crunch of intact snow betrays my presence. The prince's shoulders stiffen.

"Father, you need a rest."

He stares ahead of him into the mosaic of whites and greys. The mightiest ones are never at rest, my mother had said. Who knows what his eyes are seeing - Frieza, his own father, other shadows from his past… There is so much I don't know.

"What kind of rest? Lying unconscious in that blonde bitch's clutch, that kind?"

I should have known that his latest defeat is still haunting him. Especially the fact that he was overpowered by a woman...

"You know what I mean." I try to reason. "Get some sleep already. You can't use your full potential if your body is lacking-"

"I will not let a brat lecture me on healthy lifestyle. Mind your own business, or I'll make sure you rue the day you decided to squeeze your tail in here after me."

As if it wasn't Goku's idea all along. The field of ki around my body intensifies as rightful anger claims me.

I dart past his shoulder off the edge and turn back to face him, hovering in the air just below him so that my eyes are at the level of his own.

"I annihilated Frieza with one swipe of my sword, got rid of his father and his minions and not one of them were able to so much as scratch my face, when all of you just stood crouching behind the rocks and trembled for your lives. Including you, father, who claimed to have ascended beyond Saiyan limits, who-"

"And so I have ascended! I am now at the level with that lowly clown, in fact, I am stronger!"

"That lowly clown and I have managed to accomplish what you failed."

"You used your mother's Earthing trickery to come to the past, already being a Super Saiyan."

"My mother's skills and knowledge is the only reason you are all still alive!" I clench my fists. "If it wasn't for us, all of you would be dead by now! The androids would have picked you out one by one, as they did in my timeline, and even you, the prince of Saiyans, couldn't have done a thing to prevent it. You owe me your life, _Vegeta_!"

"I am indebted to no one!" he hisses. "Not once in my life have I asked for anyone's help. I train alone, I fight alone and even if I were to die by the hand of those tin soldiers, at least hell would claim me unstripped of my honour!"

_His honour. He thinks it's all about him…_

"And what's the use of you dying? With Goku dead, you and Gohan would be the only ones powerful enough to kill the androids. He could never pull it off alone!"

"Why should I care? It's not my duty to protect this wretched mud-ball. I can't see why it's so precious to you. No planet with such incompetent inhabitants is worth of existence. I should have blown it off to dust before I got sucked into all this mess."

I shut my eyes tightly. After all this time…

You cannot tame a wolf, they say. And neither can two years of sedentary life tame a pureblood Saiyan.

"Home is always precious." I say quietly.

"This is no home to me."

His words echo in my head long after my indignation subsides and we part ways; he - following the mountain range far into infinity, I - back to our oasis, the living quarters.

Gnawing absentmindedly on a slice of dry bread, I slump into a stool like a spent man. Sweat beads travel down my neck, each one rapping at polished wood like a mockery.

Later that night I awake to the sound of footsteps. If I didn't know for sure that it was father - who else would it be? - I couldn't recognize these slow, slumping thuds. They alarm me, and I have to keep myself from peeking out of the curtain. I strain my hearing to catch the slightest sign that my aid is needed, but even if it was, would I have the boldness to step out and and offer it?

Not tonight, I tell myself. There are still many nights left, so many, enough for a lifetime. Will they ever come to an end?

o - o - o

Nights present themselves with other hardships, some of which I find harder to bear than fighting the Chamber's decoration whims.

Every other night I would wake up to the the sound of muffled moans. They come from the bed to my left. Kami knows how this quiet sound is able to penetrate heavy, almost comatose sleep I fall to every night after long hours of brutal training. I wish it wouldn't.

For the few first days, I thought indifference and scorn father regarded me with was the worst to endure. It was easy to be as angry with him as he apparently was with me, easy to blame him for being such an arrogant prick and plot ways to push him down from his hill of supremacy and show him what the world was truly like. But to be aware of the wounds within him, to lie on my bed with my eyes open and wonder what in the world had he been through to become so spiteful, so bitter, so wary of human contact…

I wonder if he is aware enough to sense the vibration pattern of my _ki_ and realize that I was awake too, sympathizing, suffering in my own way.

He probably does know. Such nights leave him even more battered than usual, yet his edginess and spite seem to increase tenfold. These days father hardly needs an excuse to lash out on me, but I can't find it in myself to snap back. When he's done and we both stand in silence for the briefest moment before he storms away, his eyes are always wandering, if not downcast. He does know.

o - o - o

Following days pass in a blur. I feel closer to reaching the point beyond an ordinary Super Saiyan than I ever have, and I'm not going to let the opportunity slip away. I shut out all common sense and train, train as though it was my last day to live.

Sometimes my will is not enough. I cannot get a hold of my body anymore. It it more than a mere body of a being - machine with a tremendous potential locked within, capricious as only the most powerful and privileged can be. Sometimes I lose the rein.

I fall to my knees. Sweat drips off my brow and the tips of my hair, staining perfectly spotless white surface of nothingness, wrecking it, flawing it. Perfection is so fragile. The moment of ultimate power lasts a mere flick of a second, and then everything shatters to piees. _I_ shatter.

My father is nowhere near. I cannot sense him. My father, who, I suddenly realize, inspires me like nothing else. His mere shadow, towering over me, would chase fatigue away. I would beg for him, if I could. Only for this once.

My chest is heaving rapidly, I can't catch my breath. Still I try to stand up.

"_Let go. You are not what you think. The androids, they're killers. They'll destroy me, your mother, you… Everything you hold sacred is worth no more than a pile of trash to them."_

Gohan.

The view before my eyes fades away as I am brought back to the bleakest moments of my life.

_Black of the sky. Black rot of fear in my heart as I head for the place of tragedy._

_Goku's son's broken body on the ground, beaten by the rain, hidden in darkness. How could he have fallen? The last one of us. The last hero. How could I ever take his place?_

I scream.

_My mother. Her, whom I thank for that I live. Even in the nightmarish era I come from, life is a precious gift. I cannot let all that she's made of me be simply tossed away, destroyed by the hands of filthy, unfeeling creatures, a design of the mad doctor's twisted mind._

I scream harder.

Every beat of my heart releases a wave of heat through my body. The heat spreads, and my mind abandons reason, giving reign to pure instinct. My howl no longer sounds human.

When I think I've reached the point of breaking, something happens. I feel the change in the very core of my body, a change in the basic structure of my ki.

It might be a trick of mind, a product of my desperate hope, but I can swear the gold of my aura is a few shades lighter now. Platinum gold.

I blink. No, it cannot be. A trick of mind, nothing else. I stare at my hands, their familiar glow. Almost tangible, so rich the colour. I've grown so used to it.

Long after I turned off my aura and fell back to basic Super Saiyan mode, I could not extinguish a small smile on my face.

o - o - o

Despite my primary resolution, I have long learned to ignore my body's pleas. An ill habit to pick up, apparently, and I know that it won't fare well in future, but this is a matter of twelve months, after all. This is all I'm given to squeeze out everything my mind and body has to offer, whether or not I am yet ready to handle it. Twelve months, I tell myself. Our lives depend on it.

And after every session, more insane that the one before, my respect for father is growing fiercer. I only swore to follow this self-abusing pattern for one year. This has been his way of training, and he has known no other, nor cared to try. I will never be like him.

As much as I despise such way of training, it has been fruitful. I am getting stronger with every passing week. Gravity level that would have reduced me to the flattest of slugs but a month ago feels feather-light these days. I can gather more _ki_ energy in my fist than I had thought possible. I noticed that my share of healing beans has been untouched recently. All in all, I am moving forwards. Were are into the second half of second month in the Chamber.

o - o - o

Today's session exceeds expectations. I haven't felt this confident in years. This time the breakthrough is conscious. The line between ordinary Super Saiyan and Ascended one is distinct now. I cannot always push through it, but now I can feel it in there, lingering just above my physical limits. Doing the impossible has never felt better. It doesn't matter at all that I can only maintain the Ascended form for so long. Eight seconds yesterday. Five seconds the day before. Eight and a half today. I am sure I could last longer if the very wonder of it didn't take my breath away every time I ascended, if I stopped counting seconds frantically in my head, every each one a precious milestone.

This major achievement did not blind me enough to make me believe it would be any use in a fight yet, as the ascension is both fleeting and draining, but time in on my side now. Nearly ten remaining months in the Chamber are still ahead of me. I will use them well.

Light-headed with joy, I march back to our living quarters. Golden dome and two matching caps of the hourglasses seem more inviting than ever before.

A glance at the dome clock tells me it's past 2 A.M. I grin inwardly. This time I am not going to bash myself for not keeping a healthy routine. I feel wide awake.

I push the door open.

Any other day I would be bed-bound, yearning nothing more than to drown in soft white sheets. For a place of such harsh extremities, rigorous training and dooming solitude, the beds are exquisitely comfortable. I am usually out the moment I lay my head on the pillow. My sleep here is like black honey - thick and velvety, and suffocating, with no room for dreams nor nightmares. My eyelids are still heavy of it when morning comes. It takes all my willpower to pry them open.

Any other day… But now I very much feel like rewarding myself with a nighttime snack.

I reach out for the kitchen door. My fingers freeze in midair.

A sound of sliding drawers and rustling paper.

I sigh. So it will have to be a dinner for two, then.

My thoughts flash back to that one and only time we spoke to each other in the Chamber. It was not a pleasant conversation. I have no reason to believe this one would be, either.

So be it. I have fulfilled my goal of coming here. I have ascended beyond ordinary Super Saiyan. It's high time I learned to stand my ground against a pair of hostile eyebrows.

I push the door open.

My hearing is sharp enough, it seems. Half of the drawers behind the kitchen table are ajar, the rest of them had been shut hastily, forcefully enough to tear some off their hinges.

One drawer, pulled out completely, was set aside on the floor. Its contents are growing into a round pile on the floor. A round pile among many other round piles.

White-gloved hand wouldn't stop digging.

I kneel beside one of these piles and pick up a small, yellow container. I give it a shake - an involuntary, almost primal urge both children and adults have to shake things that rattle. To shake little yellow containers with white pills inside.

I pop the lid off and roll out an instruction leaflet. My eyes slide through words unseeing. _Use with caution. Side effects_… I roll down. _Overdose_… Down, down… _This sedative…_

I look at father across the room.

Slowly, he rises up. His short stature looks even smaller than usual. There was always something unquestionable about that posture, something that stopped others from thinking him weak despite any wounds. I grave my eyes into his now, desperately looking for that strength. If I couldn't-

"Give it back."

I clench it tighter. My thumb rests on the lid.

A hand outstreches in silent demand, with two beckoning fingers.

I throw the container across the room and he snatches it like a starved man. Bloodshot eyes keep locked with my own, two wild cubs, cornered with no means of escape.

"That thing won't help you."

His shoulders are hunched. Arms hang by his sides, a dead weight, never to move again. It is as if all those years between us have caught up with him in mere minutes. Hard lines are ploughed above his lips like dry river beds.

Now we both know.

He stares at me wide-eyed, incredulous. I have so far never been able to read his face. My mother once me about the power of physiognomy, a science that reads a man's face like open book. It's a pity I never bothered to learn. It is no matter now, though. I can see it all too clear. A whole palette blooms in those coal-black eyes, colours flashing one after another. A look of betrayal, a look of madness, a look of empty exhaustion, a look of incertitude. A closed-eye look of resolve.

He shatters the container in his hand. When his fist unclenches, there is blood smearing the glove. Yellow plastic ships rain down, followed by white smoke of powder.

I watch it lie silent before dancing up once again at the air-blow of shutting door.

o - o - o

Stifling a yawn, I rock a wine glass back and forth between my thumb and index finger, watching deep purple liquid wave and crash into the walls like a minute sea, keeping steady rhythm. A sea, calling to drown to. I take queer pleasure in resisting, refusing to bring the glass to my lips and quench a thirst in me - for what, I am still unsure.

I have never tasted wine before, nor any other alcoholic beverage. Apocalypse had deprived us of all those small luxuries we used to take for granted. My mother had, despite the shortage, saved up a small whiskey collection. Every once in a while I would stumble upon her looming over the dining room table with a glass in one hand and a Cuban cigar in another. She had never lost her dignity to liquor, though, and I never begrudged her this indulgence. These were hard times for all, and I too had my own way to escape into a better world. A much more reckless way…

Naturally, I grew curious. One day, when I came across mother drinking, I asked for a sip too. She laughed and held out the glass. Strong stench of spirit hit my nostrils and I pushed the glass away, wincing. Apparently, that was one of those exclusively adult things that we, children, could never understand.

Mother laughed again, more heartily this time.

_"That's right, Trunks, it doesn't smell too good, does it? Maybe you'll come to like it when you grow up."_

_"What does it taste like?"_

She smiled. _"Much like it smells, I think. But the feeling is much better, Trunks. It feels like you're in a big, sparkling bubble of happy peace, and nothing could ever touch you."_

I laugh. It's amusing how alike we are, my twelve-year-old self and this young man who has lived through a nightmare, yet with a soul still unscarred. Perhaps all adults are still children beneath a shell. We all want to get into that happy bubble. This is what I too yearn to find at the bottom of the glass.

Yet it stays unemptied. Darkness lies in me, as it lies in all of us. There is a part of me, lurking somewhere in the folds of my consciousness like a viper in deep slumber. It raised its head for the first time at the sight of Gohan's dead body, and that's when I knew there was more to me than I had known. I felt it stir again when I confronted father on the mountaintop. Sooner or later, the viper is bound to break loose.

I am not ready to confront the dark side of me just now.

I glance at the wall clock. Five full hours until an estimated time of dawn during this season in our native dimension. Yet the view outside is all the same - garish whiteness of vacuum. Still toying my with untouched glass, I try to remember when was the last I felt a need for sleep.

I should have known this would happen. Clock hands were not enough to keep me safely inside the frames of normal body routine. All time in the Chamber is one endless, endless day. I soon learned to view shifting landscapes as merely illusions. Visions, such as fire, ice, night-sky and mountaintops would appear suddenly and dissolve into nothingness as soon as we overcame natural challenges they provided, leaving the Chamber a void again, huge white void. I can't recall when was it that I stopped keeping track of time. I only slept when my feet failed to keep me upright. I only ate when I felt weakness in my insides that had nothing to do with hunger. I stopped feeling hungry weeks ago.

No sooner had I stopped judging father's way of training than I finally wrapped my head around it. With steely willpower and control, he tricked his body into thinking it doesn't _need_ rest or nourishment and was then capable of training for days and days without surcease. In that, he is the most brilliant warrior I have ever known.

Though perhaps he really is crossing the line now. To think of it, I haven't seen him in three days.

I peek through the back door into our bedroom. His bed is long untouched, but these days (nights) I'm a rare guest in mine too. I can't remember when was the last time we dined together, yet my personal supplies of the past week lie scattered on the shelf, only half of it used up, proving that my carefully arranged schedule was falling apart, and I am not even in the least bit remorseful. Sometimes I wonder if I'm not a mad man already, if the Chamber hasn't been meddling with my sanity, distuning my senses to build a foil of reality. How would I know?

It was then that worry began to nag at me, but I brush it away. I throw the glass into the sink and go out to do what I've been rather successful at lately - to train my skin off bones.

o - o - o

This time the Chamber is clad in a rocky seascape. Grey-brown chunks are scattered here and there, pedestals for my glorious performance. I land on one of these and look around.

I would have expected a stormy weather, waves weaving and clashing with destructive passion. An appropriate background for a man, trying to fight his own body. Yet water lies calm and even like crystal floor. I am half-tempted to set my feet upon it. Would it feel hard and solid like said crystal or, perhaps, like a soft jelly matter, barely dense enough to keep me afloat?

_You should give it a rest._

A laugh falls through my lips. It is the voice of my older self, my self from a mere month ago, when I was still sane and cautious, my mother's son.

I plant my feet more firmly on rough surface, clench my both fists to generate the _ki_ spike.

And then it goes dark.

o - o - o

This cannot be. It just can't. These are the first thoughts that rush through my head when suddenly the whiteness of blank sphere above my head turns black.

_It can't be_, I mutter franticly, bringing my now non-existent hands up to my face. I squint my eyes and look straight ahead at non-existent sea and non-existent rocks, scattered around. It cannot be.

The Chamber is a world on its own. Just as there is no planetary rotation here, neither is there a shift of seasons, nor the journey of sun in the skyline. Ever since our day one, these artificial heavens, extending into infinity, where the colour of white, or, rather, no colour at all. I've come to think of it as ice - a thin film of it would be transparent, yet with every added layer it turns more opaque until pure whiteness is achieved.

Perhaps it's a trick of my mind, a product of sleepless hours, but I cannot convince myself that it isn't real.

Blind black is surrounding me. Even my Saiyan vision cannot pierce through this thick, black veil. It suffocates me. My blindness brings forth the other senses I can still rely on. I can smell my own fear. And within this fear I am trapped, I can't move.

Enough! I've had enough of this. I gather my ki and try to ascend to Super Saiyan, hoping that golden glow will shred the darkness.

It takes me twice as much time to ascend as usually. I feel as if I'm pulling a flat object out of the water. My muscles flex, fighting against this strange, thick resistance. When I finally succeed, the glow around my body is uneven, shivering like a candle light, choking at brutal strokes of the wind.

And the worst of it is that, scared as I am, I know what's happening. Kami, I wish I didn't, but there is nowhere to hide now.

I thought he had won that night. When I found him digging for a pill to save his mind and threw a life-saver into his hand, it seemed otherwise, but he did win in the end. Crushed the thing like a trash that it was. He was above such trash.

Even though the victory was his, it was I who felt triumphant. I watched him slip through the back door and thought that it was over for him. Every day since, I dined across a vacant chair and slept beside an untouched bed and thought nothing of it.

I deliberately chose to be blind and I liked it. Such a refreshing change, when compared to hours and hours of unwelcome worry.

It was the first time in the Chamber I felt so free, so unrestrained. Father's shadow, always haunting me, disappeared.

And so did its owner. When or where, I have no clue. I am only certain of one thing now:

Through his victory came loss.

_All this darkness is coming from my father's mind._

I extend my senses through as much area of this infinite ocean as I am able to cover, and my heart freezes when I can feel no kindred _ki_ around.

"FATHER!"

I shoot into the dark fields, calling him by all the names and titles he claims for himself, rightfully or not. My screams sound terribly weak against the wind, freezing air claws at my throat. Frenzied with fear, mile after mile I fly forward, no longer expecting to find him.

The reason in me still tries to reason it out. Maybe this is but a bad dream. I halt in the air and grip my head. Maybe I was alone here all along, and all my hopes and fears took the shape of my father to help me carry on. Maybe I am already dead, but due to some glitch in my consciousness I'm unable to fall to eternal sleep, and this is the darkness of a grave I'm staring at.

Maybe I was never born to begin with.

o - o - o

Time has no meaning in darkness. Kami knows how many hours I have wandered, lost and scared. I don't remember how I found my way back. One moment I am still flying through the infinite sphere, the other I find myself standing on the platform of tiles, the safe harbour of our living quarters. My shoulders are hunched with defeat, I want nothing more than to succumb to a different kind of darkness, comforting obscurity of sleep.

My steps are too loud, much too loud as I approach the bedroom door. My eyes, strained and clouded, wander around the room with no focus.

Suddenly I feel a tingle in my insides, my _ki's_ reaction to another one. I stop dead in the tracks. Like a bland man, I turn my head to the source of trigger.

If it weren't for this _ki_, I would be too numb to notice.

How long has he been sitting here, on the roof, lost in thoughts so dreary that they poisoned the whole infinity with colour black?

Neither of us moves. I'm not sure if my presence could have triggered him in such state of ghostly lethargy. This is dangerous. A greater damage than his enemies could cause.

I raise my hand a little, about to fire a _ki _ball to distract him. This is not his true self. Not the warrior I've come to know and respect.

Yet his posture, or the outlines of it I'm finally able to see, makes it clear that he won't dodge. I hiss through my teeth and let my hand drop.

_Why are you letting me see you like this? Why don't you stand up, father, tell me to get lost and go about your business as you normally would like a cocky invincible prince that you are, or pretend to be?_

These words I shouted in my head I will come back to spit at him tomorrow if he doesn't move from this spot, I swear it. I don't care what will follow. Slowly, I turn away.

"Trunks."

My breath stops.

o - o - o

The grip of darkness is loosening. No, it's not that the Chamber is lightening. Not yet. More as if the density of darkness is diminishing enough to reveal the outlines of what surrounds me.

I sit down, cross-legged beside him, our backs to each other, as I deem safe. My heart is battering against the rib cage, but his laboured breathing is louder.

"Do you think we're alone here?"

"What do you mean?"

I look down at my clenched fists. I have a strange, childish urge to punch him, to beat him up back to his normal self. Be it haughty, ignorant, sickeningly arrogant, just not this nightmare-induced amentia.

"Of course we are. What do you mean?"

His silence seems to weave a tight, strangling shawl about my throat, making it hard to breathe. Worry throbs in my head. _He's not growing mad, is he?_

"Nothing. Forget it."

In this moment, I am completely sure we both have the same thought in our minds. The same vision. There are no enemies in the Chamber, no one to hurt us… but ourselves. We've been fighting our own daemons all this time. Father had dozens of them, I had but one. I could never help father with his daemons, and he would never let anyone else interfere with his battles.

That's just the way he is. _A lone warrior_. This thought draws a smile from me. A team might stand a better chance, yet there is something majestic about him who fights alone, is there not?

Father stirs a bit, and I glance at him from the corner of my eye.

"This Chamber is a cursed place."

I lift my head from my knee.

"Reality is all twisted here, you cannot trust your senses. Everything we see is but an illusion. The ice, the fire… We are trapped."

Suddenly I remember our first week. We had no idea what was awaiting. My horror when I saw him in the flames…

"I thought it was real." I whisper, turning to him. "When you were afire... I could feel the heat, the smell. I _had_ to try…"

"Never try to save me again."

"What if it was real? You would have burned to cinder. Did you even feel the pain?"

"I did." His eyes are calm now. "That's how I knew that it wasn't real."

_And yet this fire is the only real thing for you, isn't it?_

Now I understand.

Minutes pass in silence as we sit there on the roof, witnessing the dawn. It is the first one I've seen since coming here. What a blessed feeling to see the darkness fade away, each shade being replaced by a lighter one until nothing is concealed anymore. This is why we fear the dark, I suppose. We are blind in it. This terror I had succumbed to just moments ago had nothing to do with a child's fear of monsters in the closet.

When the two hourglasses regain their emerald shine, I steal a glance at father, unsure what to do. He looks like he could be content sitting there for the remainder of the year, musing about the upsides and downfalls of his Saiyan prince life. I, on the other hand, could not. Not if I plunk down off that roof in exhaustion…

The moment I open my mouth to mumble a sorts of good-night, he turns around to face me. I freeze.

In one most unexpected gesture, he grabs my chin, a touch firm but not rough, brings our faces closer and looks at me, for the first time really looks at me in earnest. I have no idea what he is looking for, but for once my stare is as sure as his.

I had thought his eyes were pitch black, just as this darkness he had borne. I couldn't have been more wrong. There is great depth to them, the depth I know I will never, ever reach. The sea under moonless night. An ocean of thousand layers, one darker than another. A whole ocean that separates us. This thought fills me with sadness.

A sigh comes.

"That hair of yours is macabre. What colour would you damn call that?

My lips curl up, ever so slightly. I've become rather incompetent at telling illusions from reality as of late. But I've heard once that one can only imagine things he has seen or heard somewhere.

That makes it real enough for me.

o - o - o

**AUTHOR'S NOTE**

**I feel like I have to explain two points in this story:**

**Point I - the anatomy of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. In the series, we could see these two battling a sea of flames and tons of ice, and gravity too, but nothing else. I took liberty and expanded the Chamber's abilities to the level that allows it to actually conjure up any kind of landscape, weather, even wind. It helps me express the atmosphere better.**

**Point II - Vegeta's metamorphosis. I'm not sure I rounded it enough. Now that I read it again, it feels a bit jerky: from the cockiest warrior on Earth to an insomniac martyr to a lethargic martyr to an almost-friendly would-like-to-try-to-be-a-father. The ending too. I tried to add a more cheerful tone, but now that I look back at it, such change from lethargy to downright friendliness (ok, we all know Vegeta was being exceedingly friendly here) might seem unrealistic.**

**Please let me know what you think about the ending, the whole metamorphosis thing and the fic itself. Reviews are very welcome. The harsher the better. Bash me like a Japanese salaryman on his first day in a new job.**

**P.S You know… I can't believe anyone would waste their precious SOTH (Seconds On The Internet) reading my shitlong Author's Notes, but if you really are… Man, thanks a lot! *blush* You're making me feel like I have fans.**


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